her fingers
stroking
(like legs of a spider,
webless)
the blue of the sun as it rises.

Empty hand clutching the apple core.
Her lips part
as a ghost snakes off her tongue.
She eats without looking down.
The smell of lilac and cigarettes

mingle?
Her stomach
almost sinking.

The blue of the wall peels.
(Tendrils adorn her heavy
red head, her kitchen's thorns.)
Empty hand clutching a child.

Her fingers stroking
linens—fingers tighten.

There is no crying.
Warbling shriek of the house's silence.
No crying from the cradle.

11/07/2006

Author's Note: We were charged with the task of writing a political poem without our opinions or the presence of abstractions. Images only. This is what I produced. - Edited November 23

Posted on 11/07/2006
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